“Christmas just doesn’t work out for me.”

This, my friends, is a tale of Christmas. While I watched joyous friends and acquaintances posting pictures of their Christmases on Facebook, we were knee-deep in cleaning. I mean that quite literally, as I decided to wash the carpets in our house on Christmas Day.

Because, well, our Christmas didn’t work. Heck, it never seems to work out. Someone is always sick. This year it was Ari. He started throwing up again overnight on Friday. Yep, just a week and a half out of getting over the stomach bug, he started vomiting yet again. And he wouldn’t stop.

He hasn’t stopped, yet, actually. And it’s now Tuesday. (Yes, we are taking him to the doctor today).

But late Saturday night we decided to go ahead and celebrate Christmas on Sunday anyways.

Ari and Chad were passed out on the living room floor and I managed to wake up in the middle of the night with enough time to set all of the presents up around our tree.

Sunday morning Ari awoke and didn’t even notice at first. Once he saw his stocking, he was so excited. Unfortunately, that was short-lived. We ended up making it through gifts, but with lackluster results. His much-anticipated Hatchimal has yet to be hatched; no Hot Wheel cars have been played with; and absolutely zero candy has been eaten. The only thing he wanted to do was watch movies and sleep.

After deep-cleaning the house while they all rested, I decided I just needed to get out for a bit. There’s only so much sickness and cleaning a mama can take. So Remy and I headed to Starbucks — her in PJs, me without an ounce of makeup. I just didn’t have it in me to care.

Heck, I still don’t have it in me to care!

Remy loved people watching on our little outing. And Mama loved sipping on hot coffee — and the break from cleaning!

At the end of the day, Chad and I half-jokingly quoted an infamous line from The Polar Express when little Billy says “Christmas just doesn’t work out for me. Never has.” I believe that it’s our new holiday Mantra. Sure, maybe someday we’ll look back on botched Christmases and laugh; but for now I’ll be wallowing in my sorrows as I drink from the Guzzle Buddy my husband so graciously bought for me.

And I’ll wonder, for the next 363 days, if we will ever have our picture-perfect Christmas. Only time will tell, I suppose.